Nicole Eippers (23)

Nicole Eippers created this wonderful Caterpillars collage. The largest one is the Saddleback Caterpillar, also known as Acharia stimulea. He/she lives in the USA, but sometimes they travel on ornamental plants to Europe. Which does not make us, Europeans, happy, because this Caterpillar has hairs and horns which secrete an irritating and painful venom.

Nicole added an article on the back, about a Belgian family who discovered this weird animal on their recently bought ornamental plant. So be aware!



And see, also Nicole's famous Flying Pig accompanied this great piece of mail art. Thank you very much, merci beaucoup, Nicole!

Eva (19)

Thanks to Eva I now know that there's a Hummingbird named after... me!
The Bee Hummingbird, or better: Mellisuga Helenae and Colibrí de Helen.
The only difference is that this Hummingbird is the smallest bird, weighing less than 2 grams, while I am not the smallest human (weighing a lot more than this bird and, regarding my BMI, a lot more than I ought to do :-) ), and of course I can't fly.

In real this awesome picture is even more beautiful, you can see the white wings as if they're moving like Hummingbirds' wings do!
The beautiful drawing, created by Eva, came in a great envelope with on the back side nice colours, and a sticker which at first sight reminded me of the Mandarin Duck - in my childhood my favourite kind of Duck - but by the internet I learned it is the Wood Duck or Carolina Duck.



And much more nice presents, among them this cup of tea with rose-petals, as a part of the poem 'Apologia of the 50-ers' by Lucebert, who as a poet was the frontman of the 'Vijftigers' (1950s) movement:



And interesting information about calendars all-over the world. For instance the year 1965 as we know it in Europe, did you know it is totally different in other places of the world?


Thank you very much, moltes gràcies, Eva!